Last week, Joey from the design firm jruiter + studio sent me this concept bike that they recently developed to “simplify inner city personal transportation”. The stripped down 29” wheeled concept bike has very few parts overall. Joey explains:
“Our project, simplicity in inner city bicycling, was at first glance a fun aesthetic opportunity in new trends, color, and materials. Our target lived / worked in an inner city environment with minimal space. Bicycling at this level is more about fashion and culture than speed and performance.
After the first few brainstorm sessions we knew there where bigger opportunities. The project ended up rethinking what a “frame” meant, getting ride of basic key components, and creating a new type of compact bicycling.
The final design came down to a frame system and a really difficult rear hub. Everything else is rider preference.”
My first impression of this design was that it looked like an updated version of something out of Archibald Sharp’s 1896 book, “Bicycles and Tricycles”. The idea of adding cranks and pedals to a boneshaker, hobbyhorse, velocipede, or whatever you want to call it is certainly nothing new, but I think it is interesting to see a modern take on it.
In his email, Joey acknowledged that this design isn’t for everyone:
“Before all of the bike fanatics get all fired up, we know this bike doesn’t solve everyone’s personal transportation dreams. Performance wise, the bike is on the slow side, quirky, and fatiguing over longer distances. Consider it a cafe racer with the performance of a beach cruiser. The positives are easy quick turns, huge power to the rear wheel to go over curbs and other cityscape structures, and great start / stopping / sitting situations. “
One thing is for sure; this bike has been spreading around the design blogosphere the last couple of days. Read more about it here, here, and here, just to name a few places.
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